


But Your Sums And Your Pieces (are enough to make you whole)

by CombatBootsandDreams



Series: Glow in the dark [10]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkwardness, Canon-Typical The Beholding Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Vast Content (The Magnus Archives), Communication, Elias Bouchard Being a Bastard, Friendship, He's only mentioned two times but I feel like you still need to warn people, M/M, Mentioned Elias Bouchard, Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, No beta we kayak like Tim, POV Martin Blackwood, Panic, Recovery, Warning: Elias Bouchard, he is the cause of some of the problems in this fic, rated for curse words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CombatBootsandDreams/pseuds/CombatBootsandDreams
Summary: It's Halloween week and Jon and Martin talk. It's awkward but in the archives what emotional conversation isn't?
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Glow in the dark [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924183
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	But Your Sums And Your Pieces (are enough to make you whole)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thank you for all the nice comments on my other stories. I read them all and keep them very close to my heart. Title is from "Soap" By the Oh Hellos

Martin Blackwood hated Halloween. Hated the whole month of October really. He hadn’t minded it as a kid, or even as a teenager, but since he started working at the institute? He doesn’t think there’s a month he loathes more. The entire month of October and the first two weeks of November were always fucking terrible. Everyone was in the spooky fall mood and decided what was spookier than going monster hunting? Or let's go find the most haunted thing we can and play around with it? Or let's just go and lie to the Magnus Institute, huh? Sounds like a great waste of time. 

It. Fucking. Sucked. They had at least three times the statement givers and the same amount of personal. Hell, he was pretty sure everyone in the institute hated it considering the time between October 1st and November 15th had been informally deemed “hell season” by everyone he’s talked to about it.

Jon seemed to hate it too, on the surface, at least. His admittedly fair bitching about the number of fake statements he got was definitely genuine, and the amount of papers being aggressively shredded with extreme prejudice in the coping room every day spoke to him being actually pissed off, but. 

He seemed happier. After Jon had slipped from archives cryptid to Eldritch boss, he seemed to be a little more excited about the upcoming holiday. He could even be downright festive on occasion! That is if the themed long socks were anything to say. Or the pins that were turning a little more spooky than normal. Or the black skirt with the web design that Martin would bet money Jon had stolen from Annabelle Cane of a people. It wasn’t like Jon wasn’t known to break dress code once they realized they couldn’t get fired. His general style tended to be punk or alternative and was slowly floating away from the sweater vests and slacks that Martin and Tim had very violently realized was another layer to Jon’s attempting to be professional and put together even as the world as they knew it was very quickly collapsing around him.

Anyways, despite more pointless work, Jon seemed happy. More comfortable in his skin than Martin had seen in a long time, maybe even ever. He would never admit it out loud, but he thinks Beholding fits Jon in some weird way. That despite the horror it just made sense. In the same way all the Avatar’s Martin had met made sense. Like the energy from their entities wrapped around them like a well-loved jacket. That it just clicked in a way Martin couldn’t explain.

Not that he would ever tell Jon that. Even if Martin has a feeling that Jon wouldn’t mind anymore.

An old man walks past him from down and into Jon’s office, breaking him out of his contemplation. He wasn’t a statement giver, didn’t have that look to him. Not the angry ones, or the scared ones, or the unsure. Not the desperate, or the lying, or the excited. The man looked calm, looked smug, and when he looked at Martin he could help but feel like he was falling.

Oh.

Oh, shit. Vast.

Martin pulls the alarm. It didn’t make a lot of noise, or any really. It was just a light, or several lights really. A subtle warning that there was an unknown possible danger in the archive. It wasn’t an impressive setup. A few colored lights on Sasha’s desk. He flipped the light that meant dangerous and the light that meant avatar. He thought about it before flipping the Entity light to Vast blue and the small white light for unknown. The others were out but if they came into the archives they would know what it stood for. Just in case.

It was quiet after that. Martin tried to focus on his work, but his eyes kept being brought up to the closed Head Archivist’s door. What if something bad was happening? What if Jon was in trouble and Martin just stood there a did nothing? 

Just as Martin worked up the courage to go check on the situation. Jon opened the door to let the old man out. Normally brown eyes green and shoulders relaxed the same way they were after taking a statement. 

“I do hope that wasn’t the best intimidation tactic the Fairchild’s had but I suppose if it was we won’t have much to worry about.” Jon said with a sleepy smile that was trying and failing to turn into a smirk.

The man left, going up the stairs in a daze. Jon for his part looked at Sasha’s desk and tilted his head before looking at Martin, eyes still glowing. 

“That was Simon Fairchild. You couldn’t have known that so overall good work with the warning system.” He says turning out the lights.

“Oh—um what did he want?” He asked not really sure if he wanted to know.

“Lukas’s vs Fairchild’s they’re working things out and it’s getting a little precarious.” Jon said eyes losing their glow but still being very much green.

“You know your eyes are green right now, right?” Martin blurted out before he could stop himself.

Jon shrugged “Yeah, they’ll go back to normal on their own but if it’s making you uncomfortable I can—”

“No! I just didn’t know if you knew but I guess you would, you’re an avatar of The Beholding. Not that you have to use Beholding powers to know what’s going on in your head it's your head and—”

“Martin! I know what you’re talking about. It’s okay. It just takes a minute for them to go back to normal especially after taking a live statement if I don’t force them to go back, and, and I didn’t feel a need to force it all down now.” Jon admits tailing off in the end.

“Does it hurt?” Martin asked.

“What?”

“I mean forcing your powers back. Does it hurt?”

“I mean for a little bit? It’s better to just let the energy disperse naturally but I can force it all down all at once if I have to.” Jon explains shrugging.

“You don’t have to. Force all your powers down. All your spookiness, it’s okay now.”

“I hate that word. Besides, we both know that’s not true.” Jon snorts bitterly.

“Well, it should be. Besides, you’re the Archivist right? Isn’t this your space? We’re the ones intruding really.” Martin says with a bit of a laugh.

“Archive.” Jon says quietly and bitterly.

“What?” 

“I’m the Archive, not The Archivist.”

“What does that even mean?” 

“What do you think that means Martin?” Jon asks 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. It’s fine though. I guess. It’ll be fine, I’ve had time to think about it. I’ve had months to think about it. I’m getting used to the idea. It doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.” Jon says looking at his hands.

“You know it’s okay if it does. It’s okay if some things still get to you. You know that, right? No one’s going to be upset that this stuff is still messing with your head.” Martin asked because he had to know that? Right?

“Maybe I’m just not sure when it happened. Maybe I want to know when I became The Archive? Maybe I want to know when I crossed that bridge. Crossed that line? Maybe I just want to know the day I went to sleep human and woke up a monster and for all Beholding can tell me it’s never been able to tell me that.” Jon says hands pressing into the wood of Martin’s desk.

“You aren’t a monster.”

“Yeah, I am, but I think I’m okay with that now.”

“You don’t have to be.” You can be angry. You can be upset that the choice to be human was taken from you. You don’t have to be calm all the time. 

“I know, but I think I want to be. I want to be okay with it and that’s a choice that I get to make, that’s a choice I have to make. The world’s never going to give me a choice in what I am, not anymore, but I can choose whether I’m going to be okay with it.” Jon says looking a little proud and a little like he’s still trying to convince himself. 

Now Martin knew vaguely that Jon had struggled with his sense agency. With the sense that he was making his decisions based on his own thoughts and ideas. He wasn’t sure where it had come from really but he could guess it had to do with Elias. What he did know was that he had not been the person to help him through it. That it hadn’t been Tim, or Basira, or Melanie that had helped Jon. It had been his friends outside the institute like every other thing Jon had needed assistance with it had seemed like.

Not that he was upset Jon was getting support, it was just. He wanted to help and he couldn’t help what he didn’t understand.

“You seem happier recently.” Martin said as the silence grew and grew.

Jon smiled “I like Halloween, I can get away with so much more if people think it’s just a trick of the light or the atmosphere getting to them.” Jon said quietly smile not leaving his lips.

“Get away with more?” He asked confused.

“Yes, well most of the world doesn’t believe in this brand of the supernatural, and despite what we do we don’t especially want to change that. If everyone finds out what goes bump in the night well.” Jon trails off but Martin gets the picture.

“Let me guess sectioned officer is going to become a talked-about and very popular division of the police.” Martin says sadly.

“Got it in one. We aren’t really trying for full exposure outside of rituals and most of us aren’t trying that anymore.” Jon explains.

“Rituals?”

“Yeah, to recreate the world in the image of their entity of choice. Only the Lukas’s, Elias, and the occasional Fairchild are still trying. Everyone else just wants to keep everything as is.” Jon explains.

“And if one of those parties tries something I will put all of you one it.” He tacks on quickly at the end.

“Okay.” Martin nods good to know they are all trusted at least that much.

“Are you okay Martin?” Jon asks after letting the ritual thing set in.

“Oh, no? Yes? Not entirely but I have definitely been worse. Like Jane Prentiss, or when we found out Sasha was dead. I mean we’ve entered a point where everything is pretty okay, and I think I just need to convince my brain that everything’s going to be okay now. Like I’m not about to die or get chased by killer worms, or fight monsters in the tunnels, like we’re all okay, and it’s not all about to fall apart. I mean technically everything should be okay. I mean I have a steady job on the account that I can’t be fired and all my coworkers are mostly really nice. The pay is awful especially for the kind of work we’re doing but I digress. My boss is kind of an eldritch creature for a fear god and his boss is a serial killer, but everything can’t be perfect? Can it, and my apartment is really nice, and everything is good. Really good minus the fear gods. Or even with the fear gods? I don’t know.”   
The compulsion sputters out about at that point and Martin and Jon are stuck looking at the other really awkwardly. Well, Martin’s looking at Jon. Jon’s staring in horror right above his head.

“Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to do that, it was an accident. I’m so fucking sorry, I can leave if you want.” Jon rants more freaked out than Martin was.

“No, you said it was an accident and I believe you ok? Just try not to do it again?” 

“Of course.” Jon looks down in his lap after that and gets really still.

Martin reaches for his shoulder and Jon flinches back hard. 

“Sorry.” Jon says again hands tapping hard on Martin’s desk.

“It’s okay.” Martin says smiling.

“It’s okay?”

“It’s okay.” Martin repeats.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Maybe if they both say it to the other enough it will finally register in one of their brains.

Jon’s phone goes off and he smiles, it’s soft and warm and fond. 

“It’s Gerry, I’ve got to take this.”

“Sure.”

Martin misses his friendship with Jon but sometimes he wonders if it was ever there in the first place. Maybe this time they can make something that’ll stay. It doesn’t help the funny feeling that’s started to grow in his chest but it’s going to be okay. He’ll be okay.

And this time he starts to believe it

**Author's Note:**

> Martin is a little jealous, but he also is respectful of boundaries and understands that Jon is very much committed and very much in love. And is very happy for Gerry and Jon.  
> Hey, thanks for finishing this entire story. Comments would be very much appreciated.


End file.
